Hewlett-Packard has unveiled its server plans for 64bit extended processors, announcing new ProLiant models based on AMD's Opteron chips and Intel's forthcoming Nocona version of the Xeon. The firm reiterated its commitment to the Itanium family for high-end systems, however, positioning the new 64bit extended systems firmly in its workgroup and web server categories.

"With this announcement, we are providing a full portfolio from 32bit servers to 64bit extended, to full 64bit enterprise hardware," said HP's European director of industry standard servers, Carol Hess Nickels. The move means that most enterprise vendors, with the notable exception of Dell, now offer server products based on AMD's Opteron family.

The first of the new 64bit extended servers will ship next month. The ProLiant DL145 is a dual Opteron server that will replace the current Xeon-based DL140. Its starting price will be similar to the old model, in the region of $1,700 to $1,800 (£910 to £960), said Hess Nickels. A four-way Opteron with 64GB of memory, the DL585, will ship in the second quarter, as will a dual-processor Opteron blade system.

Hess Nickels said that HP would update its Intel-based ProLiant systems as soon as the Nocona version of the Xeon server chip, which will include the recently unveiled Clackamas 64bit extensions, is made available. "We expect this to be around mid-summer, but whenever Intel is there, we will be there," she said. First off the mark will be dual-processor models like the current DL360, while four- and eight-way ProLiant systems are due next year.

HP said it would not offer a means for customers to select between Xeon and Opteron chips when configuring a particular ProLiant model. "We will decide which processor is for which product, dependent on the customer segment. At the moment, the 2-way Xeon is for small-to-medium customers with basic infrastructure, while Opteron has more benefits for high-performance computing and memory-constrained applications," said Hess Nickels. However, the positioning depends on the relevant performance of Intel and AMD's chips, and could change as new revisions are introduced, she added.

HP also announced that its NonStop operating system has now booted on Itanium-based systems, as part of the firm's migration of fault tolerant computing to the Itanium architecture. HP's server strategy now sees the older MIPS, HP 9000 and PA-Risc systems replaced with the Itanium-based NonStop and Integrity platforms. Below these sit the new ProLiant systems, with single-processor 32bit Xeon ProLiants at the entry level.

The Opteron-based ProLiants will ship first with 32bit versions of Windows and Linux, but 64bit Linux distributions will be supported within 90 days, HP said. Microsoft is set to ship A 64bit version of Windows Server later this year.